Category Archives: Campaigns & Elections

Looking for in-depth, expert research on current issues? CRS Reports are a great resource! The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is an arm of the Library of Congress that exists to keep members of Congress informed about issues related to pending legislation. CRS staff are subject experts in a variety of fields and they produce nonpartisan reports that relate these issues in an easily-digestible format.

CRS Reports can be hard to find. The federal government doesn't currently make them widely available to the public: you must request a CRS Report by title (or report number) from a member of Congress. However, you can find CRS Reports through subscription databases (like ProQuest), for some vendors for a fee, or for free from the following collections.

Search strategy for finding other CRS Reports:

More about CRS Reports…

This presentation talks more about CRS, summarizes past legislation that attempted to make CRS Reports public, and how to write your member of congress to request a report. For more information about CRS Reports, see this OpenCongress.org page: http://bit.ly/CRSReports

There are a number of independent groups, government boards and commissions who provide information and data on campaign finance and individual political contributions. The following are just a few of these fantastic resources from the Campaign Finance Research Guide:

OpenSecrets.org (http://www.opensecrets.org/): Provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) – a nonpartisan and independent research group, OpenSecrets.org is a clearinghouse of data, including detailed contribution profiles, fund-raising breakdowns for federal party committees, and personal finances of members of Congress, the president and other officials. See the Politicians & Elections menu to search politicians by specific Congress, going back 10 years – http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/index.php.

For an electoral map with the option to view county results (click on the link for “County Bubbles” on the left), for Obama’s Victory Speech and McCain’s Concession Speech, for Exit Polls with corresponding demographic information, and for the Big Board with expected results alongside actual results, click here.

The Journalism School along with the Center for New Media Teaching and Learning created an amazing new reporting resource for RW1 students – an electronic map of New York City that allows students to view census data by neighborhood, election district, etc. To use this resource, and for more information on how to use it, follow the link below (authentication required) –